"And if it is?"
"Tell him it's Mr. Bofinger, Alonzo Bofinger."
"Mr. Groll is out," replied the butler aggressively, "and he won't be back to-night."
At this moment, when Bofinger was in despair, a carriage drawn by a team rolled swiftly up and stopped before the house. The butler, leaving Bofinger, ran down to the step and helped out the short, overhung figure of Hyman Groll, to whom he gave his arm to assist up the steps.
In the disordered figure on the stoop the hunchback failed to recognize the person of his former dapper partner. He stopped and, with a questioning glance, said:
"Who is it? What do you want?"
"It's me. It's Bofinger," the lawyer said humbly, removing his hat. "I'm in trouble, partner, I've got to see you."
Groll twitched violently, and drawing back with a start shoved the butler forward until his body interposed. Then after a moment of evident hesitation he said:
"Go in, I'll see you. Humphreys, take him into the library."
Bofinger, ushered by the astonished butler, was shown into a large room at the back where he remained deferentially, surveying the evidences of his associate's sudden rise in the world, at a loss to account for the cause.